Some other things to get depressed about

One bad and depressing item after another assaults us daily.  Jimmy Kimmel, stupid stuff from Kennedy, Patel, Bondi, Noem.  People caving.  Businesses caving.  Praise for sexist/racist commentators.  It gets so depressing.  

As a public service, I will give you three things that don’t relate to Trump about which to get depressed.

Here is a headline from the Sept. 10th New York Times:  “High School Seniors Test at a Record Low In Math and Reading.”  We are getting dumber and dumber.

Here’s another headline from the Sept. 16 New York Times:  “Study Finds Drop in Reading for Fun.”  People are too busy looking at their phones.

And we haven’t had any real rain for over a month.  We are watering my pepper plants every other day, but our rain barrels are almost empty.  All of my Scotch bonnets, habaneros, and jalapeños are drying up.  Not looking good.

Now, don’t you feel better? 

Antigone obeys a higher law

In what is perhaps the first recorded play, the subject is resistance to tyranny. 

Antigone wished to bury her dead brother Polinices, who had revolted against the state.  The ruler (and Antigone’s uncle) Creon was something of  tyrant, and he ordered the body to remain on the ground where dogs could eat it.  

Antigone disobeyed Creon and buried her brother, as was the Greek custom.  Creon was angered.

Creon [to Antigone]:  Now you, Answer this question.  Make your answer brief.  

You knew there was a law forbidding this?

Antigone:  Of course I knew it.  Why not?  It was public.

Creon:  And you have dared to disobey the law?

Antigone:  Yes.  For this law was not proclaimed by Zeus,

Or by the gods who rule the world below.

I do not think your edicts have such power

That they can override the laws of heaven,

Unwritten and unfailing laws whose life 

Belongs not to today or yesterday

But to time everlasting; and no man

Knows the first moment that they had their being.

Approximately 20 centuries later Jefferson said pretty much the same thing.   He didn’t mention Zeus, but he did mention that we were under the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.  It’s in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.  

Trump and Vance and that whole crowd are not the highest law.  Remember that.

My copy of Sophocles’ Antigone was translated by Theodore Howard Banks.

     

Three ABC Execs executed by firing squad

That is not true, of course.  ABC gave Trump $15 million to settle a lawsuit against remarks made by one of their reporters.  They also paid a million in legal fees.  This in a country in which the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press.  

No CBS executives were executed when Trump complained about coverage on “60 Minutes.”  There was no threat of jail or execution or even a fine.  Nonetheless, the parent company of CBS, Paramount, gave Trump $16 million, worried about possible–possible–merger difficulties.

The Colbert Show was cancelled.  No arrests were made.  No one was jailed.  No one was even threatened with jail.

Now Jimmy Kimmel is cancelled.  No one sent to the Gulag.  No one hustled off to a concentration camp.  Just a word from the Dictator-in-Chief and these high paid executives scurry for cover like roaches when the light is turned on.  

I can see executives cowering in fear in Moscow when the KGB came knocking.  Or in Berlin when the Gestapo came knocking.  But here?  Now?  My goodness.  What a disgusting performance.  It’s called “anticipatory obedience.”  It is also called cowardice.

 

A fairly ringing defense of free speech

Yeah, it was mine.  A Palmerton High teacher posted something mildly critical of Charles Kirk on his Facebook page, and ill-informed people on the right demanded some sort of punitive action.  The room had a fairly large crowd, but only two of us spoke about this issue–me and a young woman from one of the teacher’s classes who gave him high praise.

Here’s what I said:

My name is Roy Christman.  I live in the Palmerton Area School District at 6495 Pohopoco Drive, Lehighton.  I am a graduate of Palmerton High School, Class of 60, and my mom, Ellen Christman, was the first woman ever elected to the Palmerton Area School Board.

I taught classes in American Government, including Constitutional Law and American Political Theory, at San José State University for 28 years.  I’ve also taught American government courses at other colleges, including LCCC, East Stroudsburg State University, and Penn State–Behrend Campus.

I can testify that many of my students had a hard time with the Constitution.  The language of 1787 is a bit more flowery than that of 2025.

On the other hand, the First Amendment, adopted in 1791, is crystal clear, even to a high school sophomore.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

You may not punish someone because you don’t like his or her political views expressed on a Facebook page.  You can’t be forced to worship a certain way or be punished for the way you worship.  You have the right to criticize the highest officials in the land in a letter to the Times News.  You can stand on the street corner with a sign that says “Let’s go, Brandon” or “Publish the Epstein files.”

I brought along ten pocket constitutions if anyone needs one.  You can also download the text from the Internet.  It really is a wonderful document we can be proud of. 

Thank you.

I good a nice round of applause, and a thank you from the attorney for the School District.  Do I feel good?  You betcha.

Now I wait for the knock on the door.

Trump's Reichstag fire

In February 1933 a Dutch Communist may have set fire to the Reichstag building in Berlin.  (It has never been proven.)  Chancellor Adolf Hitler then bullied German President Paul von Hindenburg, to issue an emergency decree calling for the arrest of thousands of Communists, including Communist members of Parliament.

The police at that time were under the control of the Chancellor.  

After the roundup and the arrest of Communists along with other restrictions, the Nazi party increased its plurality in the government.

Charles Kirk is Trump’s Reichstag fire.

Snarky reply to the Association of Mature American Citizens and their membership offer

 Got an offer for a free trial membership in the Association of Mature American Citizens, a.k.a. AMAC.  It is a Trump front group organized for people dissatisfied with the “liberal” AARP.  The solicitation says the AMAC is one of Trump’s favorite organizations, no doubt right up there with the SPP (Society for the Protection of Pedophiles).

So I wasted a 78¢ first class stamp to reply.  I wrote with a Sharpie, “Dear President Trump, Not a big fan of pedophiles, liars, and con men.”  I signed my name and address, of course.  I don’t want ICE to have to go to any trouble to find me.

Kristi Noem also kills ocelots and jaguars

You probably know about her dog, but she is also harming endangered animals.  She is erecting a border wall in the Tucson sector where it is not needed, since very few immigrants cross the border at that sector.  Nonetheless, she needs to show she is tough, and she must always suck up to her master Trump.

Unfortunately, animals don’t recognize artificial national borders.  I haven’t seen the hummingbird that feeds on the flowers in front of our house the last few days–it is probably on the way to the Yucatan Peninsula.  The section of the border near Patagonia, Arizona, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, is “the last, best remaining corridor for jaguars, ocelots and antelope.  Sealing it off will sever the wildlife in Arizona from wildlife in Mexico.”  To build the wall in this sector, Noem is waiving more than 30 environmental and preservation laws.  

I am indebted to my friend Marge who keeps me in the loop about developments in Southern Arizona.  The quote is from the Patagonia Regional Times, (Aug-Sept. 2025), p. 2.

New Study Finds Autism in Washington's Army

A new study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic finds that many of the troops in the Continental Army began to act strangely after vaccinations for smallpox on orders of General George Washington.  Researchers have determined that, although the word had not yet been coined, these men were suffering from autism.

Historians believe that the autism epidemic was the major reason Washington had to ask for help from the French at Yorktown.  Dr. Ralph Perkins, who headed the project, noted that the study was terminated early because of cutbacks instituted by Elon Musk.

And Wanda, if you are reading this, it is what is called a spoof.  It is satire.  It is made up.  It didn’t happen.  So please don’t use it in your next letter to the Times News. 

An Aggie Joke

Texans are fond of Aggie jokes.  The idea is that Texas A & M students are very very stupid.  A mother tells her Aggie son to put on a pair of clean socks every day.  After a week he couldn’t get his shoes on.  Or how about the one where the Aggie plans to build a spaceship to sample the sun’s surface and is told that the sun will burn up the spaceship.  He says not to worry.  They will launch at night.  You get the idea.  Just search for “Aggie Jokes” and they will come up.

Here’s another.  An Aggie student filmed her professor in a class called “Literature for Children” and sent the film to a Texas legislator.  She claimed the prof was not following Trump’s executive order, promulgated on his first day in office, that U.S. policy would only recognize two sexes, male and female, and would enforce that rule.  So the professor was fired.  So much for academic freedom.  So much for free speech.  And what kind of student, instead of engaging the prof in a discussion, sends a film to a legislator?

And what kind of legislator acts like that?  Maybe it isn’t the Aggies at Texas A & M.  Maybe it’s the whole damn state.

See Vimal Patel and J. David Goodman, “Texas Professor Fired After Accusations of Teaching ‘Gender Ideology,’ “ New York Times, (Sept. 11, 2025), p. A14.

The Charlie Kirk murder

At a meeting tonight somebody mentioned that Charlie Kirk was murdered.  My first reaction was, “Who?”  One of the advantages of not being connected to any type of social media is that I don’t see or hear a great number of “influencers,” as they are called.  I am told that Mr. Kirk was a major influencer for millions of people.

I also heard that he had two small children.  I’m not sure why anyone would want to kill him.  Why not just turn him off if you didn’t like him? 

Why do humans walk upright?

 Actually I don’t any more.  I’m walking rather bent over from arthritis and spine problems, but that’s not what I want to talk about.  Charles Darwin noticed in “The Descent of Man” that apes and gorillas and chimps did not walk upright.  To quote Darwin, “Man alone has become a biped.”  He said bipedalism was one of mankind’s “most conspicuous characters.”

The secret is in the largest bone in your pelvis.  It is called the ilium.  It evolved to its present shape as our brains got larger, and the birth passage had to accommodate those larger heads.  Dr. Terence Capellini, a developmental geneticist at Harvard and a colleague, Gayani Senevirathne, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard, have been studying chimp and ape skeletons and embryos preserved in a number of museums.

They hope to discover how the changes in the pelvis may have made us vulnerable to certain pelvic disorders.

In May the Trump administration terminated billions of dollars of funding to Harvard, including the grant that supported the pelvis research.  Dr. Capellini and his researchers were two years into a five year project.

Dr. Capallini said, “We are wondering what would have come next had we not lost this funding.”  

Information for this post, including the quotations, is from Carl Zimmer, “The Evolutionary Steps to Standing Upright,” New York Times, (Sept. 9, 2025), p.D4.

Protest in Lehighton

The group Indivisible is calling for a nationwide protest on Oct. 18.  In Carbon County the last three protests have been held in Jim Thorpe, but Jim Thorpe is a tourist town, and all the leaf peepers show up in force–literally thousands.  

As a result we are holding this demonstration in Lehighton along Stanley Hoffman boulevard, also known as Route 209.  Tonight my friend Midge told the Lehighton Borough Council where and when we were planning to demonstrate.  I went along for moral support.  Or in my case, maybe just support.  

I thought we might get some flack from the Council, but they thanked Midge for the heads up.  That went well.

Changing the names of government agencies

Trump is changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.  He is not stopping. 

The EPA is now the EDA. 

The Justice Department is now the Retribution Department.

The Department of Energy is now the Department of Oil and Coal.

The CDC is now simply the CD.

ICE is still ICE, however.  Gestapo didn’t make the cut.

Northern California Fire Report

Our daughter works for a social service agency in Northern California.  Every few days at her work, the agency gets a list by county of the fires currently burning, the containment, and whether the agency’s clients are affected.  

Here’s an example for Siskiyou County, from Sept. 4.  Five fires were burning in Siskiyou.  This was one:

“Dillon Fire, 9,374 acres, 21% contained.  Protection on the eastern side of the fire improved over night.  This fire is still a risk as it has been growing into nearby drainages and growing in a western direction.”  

Siskiyou was not the only county with a fire.  Trinity had three, Butte had one, Tehama one, and Shasta one.  There were ten other fires but they were either under an acre or posed no threat.

In the meantime, Trump and Trump voters who put him in office are doing their best to stop alternative energy sources and even get rid of existing windmills and solar power generators.  The latest report from the administration says that global warming is not a real threat to our future.

 

"Driving while Black" in 1963

I just finished a book by black author John A. Williams entitled This is My Country Too.   It was written in 1963, the year President Kennedy was assassinated.  Williams, the author of the 1967 best seller The Man Who Cried I Am, was assigned by Holiday Magazine to travel around the U.S. and report back.  He put 15,000 miles on the car, traveling to the South, California, the Northwest and Southwest.  He was pulled over by cops for what we call today a DWB offense, was refused service, had to sleep in black-owned motels in the South, but also had some white friends he looked up along the way, and he visited some great jazz clubs.

He mentions getting sick a few times, and no wonder.  It was not easy being a lone black man driving across the U.S. in 1963.  It still is not easy, but you probably won’t get turned down when you stop at a hotel.

In an “Afterword” Williams wrote that the trip had been a real trial.  “I had had to reach the conclusion that man as I knew him best in America, was not basically good as is always suggested but evil in the primitive possessive, and destructive sense.  I knew good people existed; I had been fortunate in meeting many of them.  But stack American upon American, reach into the heap and pull one out and the chances of getting hold of one who measured up to the ideal American we all would like to be would be practically nil.”

Williams died in 2015.  I wonder if he had the same attitude when he died.  I think today he would.